Satya (K Rd)

By now everyone in Auckland surely must know how good Satya is, and you’e probably visited at least one of their locations – first the tiny little place with a couple of tables squeezed in on Hobson St – where were introduced to them by David & Laura – then later when the first rumours of their Hobson St building being demolished were hinted at, they established a second location, very conveniently located to our Balmoral house, on Sandringham Rd, but this location also being almost comically small – especially as they very infrequently let people use the private dining room upstairs.

Finally the Hobson St building was demolished (years after the first rumours), and now they have a new location – this time with plenty of room, the dining area is a similar size and shape to Simla in Mt Eden Village – this time on K Rd, just along from the Pitt St intersection.

Let me just get an important point out of the way: The Dahi Puri is to die for, if you have nothing else, have a serving of these little fellows, they’re SO good.

We also had a masala dosa, which was as good as you’ll find anywhere. Satya special chicken, which is a very savoury dish, with the chicken pieces (and secret potato pieces, waiting to trick you into thinking that they’re chicken) liberally coated in a wonderful spicy sauce, served cocktail style with toothpicks. It’s quite a dry one – it doesn’t have a thick soupy gravy as you might be used to with most curry dishes, in this case they’re just served on a bed of shredded cabbage. The old staple butter chicken, which was very good. And a very hot lamb vindaloo. Some garlic parantha (perfect, some places make them almost like roti, at Satya they’re buttery, crusty on the outside, many layered, and wonderful), and a selection of sauces (raita, mango chutney, etc.) rounding the table off.

Simply put, it was all wonderfully good.

(If you don’t like spicy food start somewhere a little more Europeanised, with milder sauces, even the medium at Satya is fairly hot. And the hot is wonderfully sweat inducing.)